Greece,
till I swam upon the fiercely rushing tide of the Middle Ages, with its
swirling eddies of passion, its heaven-reflecting pools of poetry
and art; I heard the rhythmic blow of the craftsmen's hammers in the
goldsmiths' workshops and on the walls of churches, the party-cries of
armed factions in the narrow streets, the organ-roll of Dante's verse,
the crackle of the fagots around Arnold of Brescia, the twitter of
the swallows to which St. Francis preached, the laughter of the
ladies listening on the hillside to the quips of the Decameron, while
plague-struck Florence howled beneath them--all this and much more I
heard, joined in strange unison with voices earlier and more remote,
fierce, passionate, or tender, yet subdued to such awful harmony that
I thought of the song that the morning stars sang together and felt as
though it were sounding in my ears. My heart beat to suffocation, the
tears burned my lids, the joy, the mystery of it seemed too intolerable
to be borne. I could not understand even then the words of the song; but
I knew that if there had been someone at my side who could have heard it
with me, we might have found the key to it together.

"I turned to my husband, who was sitting beside me in an attitude of
patient dejection, gazing into the bottom of his hat; but at that moment
he rose, and stretching his stiffened legs, said, mildly: 'Hadn't we
better be going? There doesn't seem to be much to see here, and you know
the table d'hote dinner is at half-past six o'clock."

Her recital ended, there was an interval of silence; then the Spirit of
Life said: "There is a compensation in store for such needs as you have
expressed."

"Oh, then you DO understand?" she exclaimed. "Tell me what compensation,
I entreat you!"

"It is ordained," the Spirit answered, "that every soul which seeks
in vain on earth for a kindred soul to whom it can lay bare its inmost
being shall find that soul here and be united to it for eternity."

A glad cry broke from her lips. "Ah, shall I find him at last?" she
cried, exultant.

"He is here," said the Spirit of Life.

She looked up and saw that a man stood near whose soul (for in that
unwonted light she seemed to see his soul more clearly than his face)
drew her toward him with an invincible force.

"Are you really he?" she murmured.

"I am he," he answered.

She laid her hand in his and drew him toward the parapet which overhung
the valley.

"Shall we go down